“In the end, a relentless campaign to extend political control over the world’s energy use is likely to fail, in part because, even if severe climate change is in our future, most people intuitively recognize that rhetoric about “the end of civilization as we know it” is inconsistent with human experience. Our distant ancestors survived an ice age with little more than animal skins, crude tools, and open fire pits. For all the talk of science and progress, the global-warming alarmists betray an astonishing lack of confidence in human creativity and resiliency. It’s almost as if the scientific community had abandoned the idea of evolution.”
Climate & Climate Change
Climate Consensus & The End of Science: Terence Corcoran versus Thomas Kuhn
I grew up in a family where we would sometimes take a vote, and then Dad would decide. Dad had some respect for the idea of a ‘majority’ or a ‘consensus’, but I can’t remember ever worrying too much about trying to convince my siblings to vote with me.
As a scientist working for government, and later in a management position with the Queensland sugar industry, my colleagues used to try and impress upon me the importance of “having the numbers” and what the “consensus” position was.
But I’ve always been less interested in who has the numbers at any particular point in time, and more interested in the argument. I’ve always believed that a solid logical argument should eventually win the day.
The other day I was sent a link to a piece by Terence Corcoran from the Financial Post in Canada titled ‘Climate Consensus and the End of Science’. It began with comment that:
“It is now firmly established, repeated ad nauseam in the media and elsewhere, that the debate over global warming has been settled by scientific consensus. The subject is closed. It seems unnecessary to labour the point, but here are a couple of typical statements: “The scientific consensus is clear: human-caused climate change is happening” (David Suzuki Foundation); “There is overwhelming scientific consensus” that greenhouse gases emitted by man cause global temperatures to rise (Mother Jones).
Back when modern science was born, the battle between consensus and new science worked the other way around. More often than not, the consensus of the time — dictated by religion, prejudice, mysticism and wild speculation, false premises — was wrong. The role of science, from Galileo to Newton and through the centuries, has been to debunk the consensus and move us forward. But now science has been stripped of its basis in experiment, knowledge, reason and the scientific method and made subject to the consensus created by politics and bureaucrats.”
The piece is interesting, it does correctly emphasis the extent to which the word ‘consensus’ is repeated invoked with the word ‘science’ and ‘climate change’ to justify support for the concept of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
Terence Corcoran’s piece might have been improved with some reference to two well know philosophers of science, Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.
Popper had no time for consensus, for him science was advanced through ‘falsification’:
“Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single genuine counter-instance is logically decisive: it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false. Popper’s account of the logical asymmetry between verification and falsification lies at the heart of his philosophy of science. It also inspired him to take falsifiability as his criterion of demarcation between what is and is not genuinely scientific: a theory should be considered scientific if and only if it is falsifiable.”
[from Wikipedia, click here].
Yet so many ‘global warming believer’ complain when ‘skeptics’ present bits of information that don’t necessarily accord with the rhetoric. They might accuse the skeptic of ‘cherry picking’. But if you believe in Popper and falsification, what’s wrong with cherry picking to disprove the general applicability of a theory?
In contrast, Thomas Kuhn would perhaps see the current preoccupation with having a scientific consensus as normal:
“Thomas Kuhn … argued instead that experimental data always provide some data which cannot fit completely into a theory, and that falsification alone did not result in scientific change or an undermining of scientific consensus. He proposed that scientific consensus worked in the form of “paradigms”, which were interconnected theories and underlying assumptions about the nature of the theory itself which connected various researchers in a given field. Kuhn argued that only after the accumulation of many “significant” anomalies would scientific consensus enter a period of “crisis”. At this point, new theories would be sought out, and eventually one paradigm would triumph over the old one — a cycle of paradigm shifts rather than a linear progression towards truth. Kuhn’s model also emphasized more clearly the social and personal aspects of theory change, demonstrating through historical examples that scientific consensus was never truly a matter of pure logic or pure facts.”
[from Wikipedia, click here]
So according to Kuhn the current preoccupation with a ‘scientific consensus’ on climate change is not necessarily novel and contrary to Terence Corcoran’s ascertains it doesn’t necessarily mean “the end of science”.
Dead But Won’t Lie Down: Vincent Grey Comments on Tuvulu
“Everybody knows about Tuvulu, It is becoming inundated by the rising sea level because of global warming. The New Zealand Government has recognised the plight of the embattled inhabitants by offering special deals for immigration. So have the Australians. It forms a regular topic at meetings of the Pacific Forum and beyond, and there cannot possibly be any disagreement on the matter.”
writes Vincent Grey today.
And he continues:
“A couple of years’ ago I was interviewed by the Dunedin-based Natural History Unit as part of documentary for the National Geographic Channel. I had over an hour to give my views on greenhouse warming, which I expected would appear in an internationally distributed documentary. They sent me a copy of the final doco “to enjoy”. I found that it was all about how Tuvulu is faced with imminent disaster, with a “moaning Minnie” lady persistently bemoaning the loss of her homeland from a comfortable flat in Brisbane. My contribution had been almost eliminated.
But Tuvulu reminds me of a comic song I used to sing of Gracie Fields called “He’s dead but he won’t lie down”. Tuvulu persistently refuses to subside.
A tide gauge to measure sea level has been in existence at Tuvulu since 1977, run by the University of Hawaii It showed a negligible increase of only 0.07 mm per year over two decades It fell three millimeters between 1995 and 1999. The complete record can still be seen on John Daly’s website, www.john-daly.com.
Obviously this could not be tolerated, so the gauge was closed in 1999 and a new, more modern tide gauge was set up by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s National Tidal Center by Flinders University at Adelaide. But Tuvulu refuses to submit to political pressure.The sea level has actually fallen .since then
Tuvulu cannot be allowed to get away with it. So Greenpeace employed Dr John Hunter. a climatologist of the University of Tasmania, who obligingly “adjusted” the Tuvulu readings upwards to comply with changes in ENSO and those found for the island of Hawaii and, miraculously, he found a sea level rise of “around” 1.2 mm a year.which, also miraculously, agrees with the IPCC global figure.
Since all this seems biased, or politically influenced, Dr John Church of the CSIRO at Hobart, Tasmania, a Lead Author of the IPCC Chapter on “Sea Level”, plus his colleague Dr Neil White, have sought to reverse actual measured trends by “combining records from tide gauges from all over the world with satellite altimeter data to assess regional variation”. Unsurprisingly, and equally miraculously, they reach the same conclusion as Greenpeace and the IPCC. All this has to be imposed on poor little Tuvulu to “prove” global warming.and speed emigration.
The IPCC Chapter on Sea Level is one of the more dishonest. It practices two important deceptions. First, it completely fails to mention the fact that many tide gauges are situated close to cities where the land is subsiding because of erection of heavy buildings, or removal of ground water, oil and minerals. . It so happens that the island of Hawaii is one of the more heavily populated Pacific islands where the sea level is “rising” because the land is “falling” Another reason for upwards bias is Port Adelaide, Australia, where they decided to increase the water level in the harbour to allow for larger ships, They dredged and built a bar on the harbour. Unsurprisingly, the level rose on the tide-gauge. Corrections for these upwards biases in tide-gauge measurements have never been permitted to be discussed by the IPCC.
The other deception of the IPCC Sea Level Chapter is in statistics. The sea level averages are so inaccurate that they have to supply only one standard deviation as a measure of inaccuracy, instead of the otherwise universal use of two standard deviations. One standard deviation gives only a one in three chance that the measurement lies outside the limits. Two standard deviations puts it up to one in twenty. If you use the proper figures you find that the accuracy sometimes permits a less than one in twenty chance of a sea level fall. That must never be allowed
This whole melancholy story is told in an article in ‘Science’ 2006 Volume 312, pages 734 to 736, It seems that the Greenpeace organisation is now occupying the role of the late Trofim Lysenko in their ability to reverse the findings of scientific research.
Vincent Gray
Wellington, New Zealand‘It’s not the things you don’t know that fool you. It’s the things you do know that aint so’ Josh Billings”
Florida Corals Not At Risk of Global Warming: Gary Sharp
Dr Gary Sharp, Scientific Director of the Center for Climate/Ocean Resource Study in Monterey Bay, California, makes a few good points regarding global warming and coral bleaching with particular reference to the Florida Keys in a recent article published by Tech Central Station titled, ‘Coral Bleaching: What (or Who) Dunnit?’:
1. Cold winters, not global warming, wiped out large areas of cold-sensitive corals in the Florida Keys in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
2. Coral reefs currently exists along a 6-7 degree temperature gradient so all the corals aren’t likely to die from a projected 2 degree celsius warming.
3. Sea surface temperatures are unlikely to increase by 2 degree celsius because the ocean responses to “excessive heating” through Deep Convection when the sea surface temperture exceeds about 27.5C.
Read the full article here:
It’s Raining Now in Southern Sudan, And the Climate Models Tell Us?
There is an article at the Science and Development Network Website indicating that some climate models predict Africa’s Sahel region will get wetter, while others predict it will get drier given global warming:
“Scientists initially believed that the decline in rainfall was caused by overgrazing and people clearing vegetation to make way for more farming and herding. But since the mid-1980s, several computer models have suggested that changes in the surface temperature of the oceans have changed the dynamics of the West African monsoon and are therefore to blame.
This hypothesis has gained widespread support but there still some disagreement. Different models point the finger at different oceans — some say the influence of the Indian Ocean is most important, others the difference between the North and South Atlantic.
Most scientists agree that the greenhouse gases and aerosols that human activities release into the atmosphere are partially to blame for changing ocean temperatures.
The question, then, is how this will affect future rainfall. Again, the answers depend on the models used.
… Understanding why the models predict such widely divergent futures “is a scientific priority that requires really getting into the bowels of the models” says Alessandra Giannini, a climate expert at Columbia University in the United States.
“There must be something in the models’ physics that is causing them to respond differently.”
For instance, several researchers have pointed out that many of the models show cooler present-day sea temperatures near the Americas and warmer ones close to Africa when the reality is the other way around — suggesting that the models are flawed.
Hurrell attributes the difficulties in modelling future Sahel rainfall to the “multiple competing influence of [factors that have] comparable importance”.
His research with Hoerling suggests that global sea-surface temperatures play a strong, and possibly dominating, role in determining how much rain falls in the Sahel — more so than, for instance, temperatures above Africa.”
The semi-arid Sahel stretches across North Africa south of the Sahara and is well know for its droughts and famines.
I have a friend currently working as a nurse in war torn southern Sudan, in a recent email she told me it was raining:
“It is Sunday and I have some computer time at last. And I am not on call, so hopefully will have some time to myself. After saying last Sudanmail how awful the heat and the dust was, we are now experiencing heat and mud. It has bucketed down for three days now, and the soil has turned to thick, black mud which builds up on the bottoms of your sandals till you are walking on platforms.
Great excitement for the distribution of gum-boots and raincoats last week, so now we all clomp around in boots, but the raincoat is too much of a sauna.
… The rain means the computers don’t charge as there is no solar energy, so we have been short of power. I think there is another 4 months of rain ahead, so I had better get used to power shortages and mud.”
So solar is not so good, when its raining nonstop.
Polar Bear Politics: Misrepresenting the Nature of One Smart Bear
Does the end ever justify the means?
Some activists concerned about global warming, and who want the rest of the world to be as concerned as they are, recognise people care about polar bears and want to exploit them as a ‘victim’ of climate change. But if I was a polar bear I reckon I’d rather be appreciated for my true nature.
Here’s an example of polar bear as victim in an article by Clifford Krauss in the New York Times :
“People care about polar bears — they’re iconic,” noted Kassie Siegel, a lawyer at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The reality of the threat to polar bears is helping to get the word out,” she said, about the effects of climate change.
Her group, along with Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed a petition with the United States government to list the polar bear as threatened as a way to push the American authorities to control greenhouse gas emissions, like carbon dioxide from cars.
The message has alarmed American polar bear hunters, who could be barred from bringing their trophies home from Canada, the only country from which they can legally do so. It has also run up against unbending opposition from local communities of Inuit, also known as Eskimos, and the Nunavut territorial government, which has expanded sport hunting in recent years.”
So Kassie Siegel is just an activist lawyer; making martyrs of everyone and everything is what activists do? But what about when scientists go along with the deal? What about when dubious claims are made by scientists to justify listing polar bears as a threatened species because of global warming?
The recent listing by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) includes the following paragraph:
“There is little doubt that polar bears will have a lesser AOO [area of occupancy], EOO [extent of occupancy] and habitat quality in the future. However, no direct relation exists between these measures and the abundance of polar bears. While some have speculated that polar bears might become extinct within 100 years from now, which would indicate a population decrease of >50% in 45 years based on a precautionary approach due to data uncertainty. A more realistic evaluation of the risk involved in the assessment makes it fair to suspect population reduction of >30%.”
The reference to “Area of occupancy” and “extent of occurrence” by the scientists is presumably just long hand for saying “the area of sea ice has reduced”.
So there is no direct relationship between measures of “area of occupancy” and “extent of occurrence” and polar bear abundance.
This paragraph (and a following paragraph that makes reference to shipping and oil exploration) was then summarized as follows to justify the listing which made headlines all over the world:
“The assessment is based on a suspected population reduction of >30% within three generations (45 years) due to decline in area of occupancy (AOO), extent of occurrence (EOO) and habitat quality.
Does it all seem very logical and scientific?
If we look at sea ice extent and area, well it has declined over recent decades, or at least since 1978, and was apparently at a 20 year minimum in 2002 (Serreze et al. 2003, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 30, No. 3). Yet polar bear numbers might have increased over this same time period?
Why doesn’t the IUCN provide any data on actual numbers of polar bears?
I understand that not so many decades ago polar bear populations had been significantly reduced by hunters? In the article by Clifford Krauss in the New York Times it is suggested that the global population, now estimated at 20,000 bears, was just 5,000 only 40 years ago.
Then in the 1970s, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United States and the Soviet Union all agreed to restrict hunting and perhaps as a consequence population numbers have increased.
Would numbers be even higher if there was more sea ice? Who knows? Do we want more polar bears?
If over the last 40 years population numbers have increased, while sea ice extent and area has decreased, then it would seem there is a correlation between global warming and polar bear numbers that runs counter to the argument present by the IUCN scientists?
But, someone is about to tell me, the IUCN argument is all about the future and an assumed inability of polar bears to adapt to climate change?
But, as Jane George explains in an article title ‘Global warming won’t hurt polar bears’ in the Nunatiaq News, polar bears are intelligent, quick to adapt to new circumstances and warmer temperatures could even increase food sources.
The bottomline is that while polar bears have more than sea ice to contend with, they are by nature resourceful and to quote from the display at Sea World, a theme park at Queensland’s Gold Coast, “polar bears are [probably] capable of flourishing in the wild under climatic conditions which are most un-Arctic”.
Indeed there are polar bears successfully living and breeding in zoos in Arizona, Singapore and just an hour’s drive from me at Sea World. The polar bears at the subtropical Gold Coast have their swimming pool cooled to just 15 degrees and their favourite food is apparently watermelon.
Suggesting global warming is a significant threat to polar bears is really telling lies about polar bears and misrepresenting their true nature. This continual rewrite of how things are on the basis we should worry more about global warming, is as sad as it is insidious. That’s not to say we shouldn’t care about global warming, but that we shouldn’t tell lies about polar bears! should tell it as it is.
—————–
Changes were made (words crossed out, words added are underlined) at the request of Peter Corkeron. The blog post is intended to draw attention to the difference between the available data and IUCN statement justifying the listing of polar bears as a species threatened with extinction. It is not a personal criticism of particular IUCN scientists.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.